


When the Mighty Fall the Earth Endures

by Bluejaykat



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: And hate eachother, Based on the Love Shot MV, Gen, Love Shot AU, Love Shot was such a work of art ugh, Mafia sort of, Sehun Baek Chanyeol and Ksoo are the right hand men, The Kim Bros are brothers, implied alcoholism, no one is good in this sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluejaykat/pseuds/Bluejaykat
Summary: This is the product of watching Love Shot too many times. Just a little oneshot based on the MV because I was inspired.





	When the Mighty Fall the Earth Endures

Red and gold, like blood and money. It was all he had ever known, so it was comforting. If he was going to die anywhere, Jongdae decided, it would be here, on the soft velvet theater chairs, pouring whiskey the color of his hair down his throat. 

He knew Jongin was behind him, could hear his even breaths, calm, like he wasn’t about to kill a man. However, he refused to turn around, continued to stare at the flickering white of the empty screen in front of him; empty like Minseok’s promise to keep him safe, whispered countless times through the years when Junmyeon and Jongin weren’t listening, fast asleep.

It didn’t matter anyway. By now half of their inheritance was in flames, a funeral pyre of gasoline soaked paper that was worth more than a human life, burning away their youth. Maybe they’d burn him too, when he was gone, scatter his ashes among the wild roses. And he’d fall like lightning, his life of power ending among the ashes. Did he deserve to die?

Jongin was in front of him now, Sehun and Chanyeol were on either side, towering over him, the smell of cinnamon and lavender cologne burning his nose like alcohol. 

Jongdae always preferred gold over silver, silver was cold and dead, gold was warm and living. Silver was the gun in Jongin’s hand, gold was Jongdae’s skin, the price of the money Jongin so desperately wanted. It only cost Jongdae’s life.

“It’s gone.” his voice didn’t shake. He wasn’t going out this easily.

Jongin shook, though, with rage. He shot once, twice, shots echoing around the empty room like thunder, the silver bullets ricocheting off the edges of the seat Jongdae sat in, mere warning shots powerless against the reinforced gold trim. 

“Where.” the words were like a steel knife against Jongdae’s throat.

“Junmyeon.” he didn’t hesitate to accuse the older, God knew he hated Junmyeon enough, on his crystal throne in painted halls, an army at his command.

Jongin hissed, and turned on his heel, the onyx eyes of the silver snake cuff links leering at Jongdae as his younger brother’s arm passed over his head, ruffling up his hair with a chuckle.

“You’re lucky.”

They vanished up the stairs, around a corner. Jongin was nothing in the face of the storm. He could never hope to conquer it. Jongdae smiled to himself as he took another sip of alcohol. No, the one who conquered the storm was the one who found the eye. 

The screen flickered a bit as Minseok threw the doors open, striding down the aisle followed by Baekhyun. They shared a smile as Baekhyun handed Jongdae another drink, the glasses clinking together in a toast as the crystal reflected the thousand colors of the broken film projection behind them before it flickered to red as they drank to the sound of wailing alarms and the rhythm of gunshots.

 

The sky was a light peach color as the sun set, the color deepening toward red with every passing second, with every mile that was eaten up by the car. Chanyeol and Sehun twitched with eagerness, their eyes narrow and violent in the rearview mirror, but the didn’t scare Kyungsoo. How could the earth fear air and fire? They were fleeting and temporary but rock endured. Only water could wear it away, and even then the deep jagged cuts only served to make it more beautiful.

“You’ll wait here for us?” Jongin asked. It wasn’t a question, it was a command.

Yes, he would wait. As he always did. Watched. And waited. He was patient as the water wore him down, he was patient. Jongin was gone, followed by Chanyeol and Sehun, disappearing into the warehouse. They would find out, and it would lead them straight to the king himself. Kyungsoo smiled. The storm had agitated the water, and he was the man on the cliff, watching the lightning strike the ocean.

 

Was he paranoid? Perhaps. He knew they were coming, Kyungsoo had told him. It didn’t matter. He would swallow them up like a drop of water in the seven seas. He watched their every move, heard their every whisper. They were nothing. 

Jongin had failed, he should have known. Jongdae was strong, clever, like their mother; but weak, also like their mother. And he would drown, just like she had. It was only a matter of time. 

He untucked the single rose from his buttonier and dropped it carelessly on top of the dead assassin. Kyungsoo would be back soon, and he would unleash an army on his brothers. Blood is thicker than water, but man can drown in both, choked by the jealousy of blood welling up in their mouth as they struggled for their last breath, submerged in the depths of Junmyeon’s power. Dying, looking into his eyes and knowing: he was superior. 

He watched the screens like a hawk, waited, perched atop the marble staircase, until he knew for sure they were dead. Then he would reign supreme as the storm subsided and the ice thawed and the smoke vanished.

 

He was always the stealthy one. He prided himself on it: the ability to slip in and out of anywhere, like smoke and mirrors. Yet now, he knew, from this there was no escape. There were too many, the smoke was gone, the mirrors were shattered, his act was over. His brother’s security team had been easy. Junmyeon always underestimated him. But, maybe he and Junmyeon were not so different after all, underestimating people. 

Like a thorn on a beautiful rose, it came as a shock. He had always trusted the roses with his life, but now, it was him who was the rose among thorns, and he had been pricked to death.

They left him bleeding out on the floor, with the knife embedded in his chest, and he watched through blurry eyes and labored breaths as Chanyeol and Sehun stepped over his body and out, dropping their lapel pins on the ground: blue roses softly falling beside him. 

His cuff links hissed in delight, his right hand and his left both coiled snakes watching….waiting….for their time to strike home.

 

They were surrounded, but they laughed. The three of them, this was nothing. There was no better team. The laugh stuck in Jongdae’s throat, and he clutched at his chest. He felt like he was suffocating, drowning. There was no wound, yet he fell to his knees, gasping. 

The room spun in many colors, like the colors on the screen in the theater, flashing a warning of betrayal that he had been to blind to see. The honey whiskey had turned to poison on his lips and he collapsed completely, the fight in him subsiding as his body went limp.

He stared up into the face of Minseok, eyes unmoving, and cold as ice. The elder turned to Baekhyun as the world faded to a silvery gray as Jongdae’s vision slowly faded, and they watched his golden skin turn to ashen. 

Empty promises flickered through his mind, spots danced across his vision, and a gentle hand caressed his face. There was laughter, then silence.

 

When the last spark of life had left Jongdae’s body, Minseok stood. Lightning never strikes the same place twice, because it honors the burial grounds of its fallen brother. When the lightning fell, it struck the ice, and melted a bit of the frozen surface. It was a sacrifice that had to be made.

He turned to fire at Baekhyun, but a bullet buried its way into his chest, taking advantage of the partially thawed ice. He blinked once, twice, then fell. Lightning never strikes the same place twice, but where it does strike, it petrifies for millennium.

 

Jumyeon smiled as he descended the stairs, smiled as Kyungsoo drove him to the warehouse. He was still smiling when he was crushed by the very metal box that contained his hopes and dreams. When the tremors subsided, Kyungsoo knelt down next to the hand still stretched out from under the safe, slipping the ring off. The ring red as the blood of the family he murdered. 

He turned to the car where the others were waiting, expectantly. The seal of the ring was the key to the safe. Like friendship, it held secrets; like a promise, it came with consequences.

The storm will pass, the ice will thaw, the smoke will disappear, the ocean will dry up. But the earth? The earth is forever, as constant as death itself.


End file.
